Israeli police: 2 Palestinians shot dead after knife attacks

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police officers on Saturday shot dead two knife-wielding Palestinians in response to separate stabbing attacks against Israeli officers, police said, before a third attack against police forces later in the day left three officers injured.

In the first incident, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said a 17-year-old east Jerusalem resident named Ali Mohammed Abu Ghannam approached a roadblock with a butcher's knife and tried to attack officers there. Samri said officers shot Abu Ghannam dead after he refused to lay down his weapon. Dozens of Palestinian youth clashed with police forces following the incident, hurling rocks at the police who responded with tear gas.

In a separate incident a firebomb was thrown at a bus on a highway leading into Jerusalem. No one was wounded.

Later, in the West Bank city of Hebron, a Palestinian attacked an Israeli police officer there, stabbing him several times in his head and chest. The officer was evacuated to a hospital and was in stable condition. Sabri said other officers on the scene opened fire on the assailant and killed him.

Finally, late Saturday, a car driving toward the Mount of Olives cemetery in east Jerusalem swerved toward the pavement and ran over three Israeli officers, wounding one seriously, police said. Officers opened fire toward the vehicle but it managed to escape before being found later without the driver in it.

The series of attack comes a week after Israeli authorities say a 37-year-old Palestinian man intentionally rammed his car into a group of Israeli Jews near Jerusalem, killing one man and seriously injuring a woman.

Israel has seen several isolated vehicular and stabbing attacks in Jerusalem in recent months, raising fears of a renewed wave of Palestinian violence like the one that gripped the country a decade ago.